


Thirty-One Others I Can Be

by 1001cranes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe, Incest, M/M, Uncle/Nephew Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 16:30:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2075100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001cranes/pseuds/1001cranes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[AU where Peter is de-aged instead of Derek]</p><p>The pack looks at Peter like he’s rabid, like at any moment he’ll bite their tentatively outstretched hands.</p><p>"They don’t like me," Peter says once they’re gone, and Derek's silence speaks volumes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirty-One Others I Can Be

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this gif](http://capsforeskin.tumblr.com/post/90465291872/this-looks-like-young-peter-oh-man-i-can-just) of 'young Peter' **(NSFW)** and CERTAIN PEOPLE being THE WORST

Peter doesn’t believe them at first. He isn’t anymore inclined to trust the people who “saved” him than the ones who originally imprisoned him — not when he went from being owned by a bunch of hunters to a ragtag bunch of supernatural teenagers who smell like blood and lightning and other werewolves. It doesn’t sound like they’re lying, but Peter isn’t stupid.

But it turns out they’re not lying after all, not really; it’s 2013 and Peter Hale is thirty-seven as far as the rest of the world is concerned, not twenty-seven. He doesn’t really believe it until he sees Derek - Derek, his little nephew, grown up and filled out, stubble on his face and pain in his eyes and nothing like the little boy who used to follow Peter around like a shadow. 

 The others tiptoe around him. It’s partly fear, he can see that simply enough, but its hard to tell what kind: fear of him, fear of the unknown, fear he won’t ever go back to the way he was, fear of his reaction, fear of what he knows or what he doesn’t know any longer, fear of what was done to him. They still double-take every time they look at him, every time he opens his mouth to speak. 

| |

Derek brings Peter back to his apartment. 

"You have a place downtown, but you should stay with me until — for now," he amends.

Until they fix him, Peter thinks, but no one knows if that will happen.

"Thanks," Peter says. Staying with Derek would be his preference anyway. He doesn’t - he feels wrong, like this. He doesn’t have a pack, not a real one. He’s barely one step from being an omega, and he can’t think of a worse kind of werewolf to be. What would be the point?

"You can stay in the loft. It’s sort of Cora’s room. You remember Cora?” Derek asks, cautiously.

Peter tries not to roll his eyes. His memories are a little outdated, he’s not actually mentally damaged. “Last time I saw her she was six and throwing tantrums every time she lost at Candyland. I’m assuming she’s improved.”

That brings a ghost of a smile to Derek’s face. “Not as much as you might think.”

| |

The loft is as sparse as the rest of the apartment, but it smells a little like how Peter remembers home to be. It’s the closest Peter has felt to safe since he left that hellhole and Derek first wrapped his arms around him, too tight and too strong and just this side of wrong. Everything about Beacon Hills is just this of wrong, it seems. Peter too.

| |

Cora is in South America. Everyone else is dead, wiped out by the Argents, and now the Argents are mostly dead themselves. The only one left is Chris, apparently so sad and broken he’d run half a world away.

Peter doesn’t feel particularly bad about most of that.

The ragtag band of teenagers that helped rescue Peter is a pack that isn’t a pack. Not  _their_ pack, at any rate, and that’s just about all that matters. They have no idea what happened to Peter, no idea how to fix it, toes barely dipped into the supernatural part of this world. Kira is a new kitsune, young and clumsy. Stiles is human, contemplative and sharp and sarcastic; his girlfriend Malia is almost equally so, though with less of a civilized veneer. 

(“She was wild for eight years,” Derek says later. “Werecoyote.”

"A werecoyote?" Peter asks, skeptical. Derek never exactly had a sense of humor, but —

"Werecoyote," Derek nodded.)

Scott is good-natured, patient, but easily thrown off. An Alpha -  _the_  Alpha, ostensibly, but so new Peter can smell it on him, like fresh paint. Peter doesn’t like him simply because of the way Derek looks after him, longing, like a domesticated dog.

They look at Peter like he’s rabid, like at any moment he’ll bite their tentatively outstretched hands, and he doesn’t particularly like them for that either.

| |

"They don’t like me," Peter says once they’re gone. 

Derek’s silence speaks volumes. He’s so much quieter, this Derek; Peter sometimes finds himself listening for Derek’s heartbeat just to make certain he’s still there.

"I’m sorry," Derek says after a moment. "It’s not - you haven’t done anything."

"But I did," Peter says. "Or I will. Something like that."

“ _You_  haven’t,” Derek says again, firmly. He presses a hand onto Peter’s shoulder. “They’re not - we’ve been through a lot lately. All of us. It’s hard to trust.”

"I trust you," Peter tells him. It’s the truth, and a terrible one. Truths are pointed, and raw, and complex. They come with hooks. Derek is the only person he knows, the only person who seems to care about him, and if laying himself open draws Derek in, so be it. 

Derek inhales hard enough for the sound to echo like a gasp in Peter’s ears. 

| |

The Derek Peter remembers was overconfident and brash, full of himself and easily led; this Derek is broken and quiet, angry and defeated. He’s still beautiful - Peter doesn’t remember a time when Derek wasn’t beautiful, when he couldn’t make even strangers smile and gaze after him - but teenage Derek was as good as a lodestar, and this Derek is the last candle in the darkness, nearly drowned in shadows of his own creation.

There have always been benefits, Peter thinks, to being one of the dark things. 

| |

After a week Peter crawls into Derek’s bed. The scent is thick there; even the artificial floral of the recently washed sheets can’t entirely overcome the scent of  _male_  and  _werewolf_ and  _home_ , sweat and spunk and skin. He takes his time, rolls all over the sheets; smells them and bites down on them, leaves the imprint of his teeth everywhere he can. Works himself up until there’s no holding back, until the pounding of his heartbeat throughout his body is even louder than the roar of Derek’s in the other room.

"Derek," he gasps out when he comes, guttural and harsh, choking on air like a drowning man. "Der-ek," jerking himself off and brushing his fingers just behind his balls, hands moving furiously until he can’t even stand his own touch, nerves singing.

Derek’s footsteps are uneven but solid as they come closer, and Peter thinks about Derek - new Derek, older and larger and stronger, meatier than Peter would ever have pictured for his little nephew - holding him down, about the press of his hands on Peter’s fair skin. About the sad, hungry look in his eyes when he sees Peter, the disbelief, the quiet and uncertain ownership that sneaks into every touch.


End file.
